Did Tom Cruise Get South Park Censored?

Hollywood, Interrupted reports that sources inside Paramount and
South Park studios say the scheduled repeat of one of my fave South Park episodes, "Trapped in the
Closet" - the one that satirizes Scientology and has R. Kelly singing to Tom Cruise to "come
out of the closet" - was pulled due to Cruise threatening
parent company Viacom. Cruise reportedly threatened to pull advertising for his upcoming film, Mission: Impossible: 3if the South Park episode was
aired.

In their long history with Comedy Central, Trey Parker and Matt Stone have never been censored, not even for their
infamous "Bloody Mary episode", but Cruise throws his weight around and suddenly the boys have their mouths
duct-taped? Following the news that Scientologist Isaac Hayes, who voiced The Chef on the show, quit
because he was offended by the Scientology spoof, this story, if it proves to be true, doesn't really serve to make
Hollywood Scientologists look like good sports, eh?

If Viacom really did censor South Park over Cruise threatening to pull advertising, shame on them for kowtowing to
his demands. Scientologists have a right to practice their religion, sure. And people like Parker and Stone have a
right to lampoon Scientology. The South Park folks are equal opportunity offenders; they've targeted Jews,
Catholics, Fundamentalist Christians, Mormans Mormons (ed. 3/16/06 - thanks to reader
jferrin for pointing out my disgraceful misspelling, and humble apologies to my Mormon pals), Muslims and
starving Ethiopians, just to name a few.

Did Hayes and Cruise get their panties in a twist over any of those episodes? Nope. But when Parker and Stone turn
their lens to an examination of the foundations of Scientology and put Tom Cruise and John Travolta in a closet
together, Cruise suddenly brings on the threats? The irony is that you can view the funnier parts of the episode
on Comedy Central's website anyhow. Parker and Stone are rumored to have been muzzled by the big dogs on the truth
around the episode being pulled, but knowing those two, I wouldn't expect them to just take this sitting down. I smell
a South Park episode with Cruise as a Scientology terrorist coming around the bend...